2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz: It appears the minivan can be cool again
The long-awaited electric-powered Bus reincarnation has finally arrived. Unlike other versions, it’s fast and fun. It’s also kind of pricey, but not so much when compared to other minivans.
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid SX Prestige vs. Chrysler Pacifica vs. (fanfare!) Volkswagen ID.Buzz: A brave new minivan comparison.
This week: Volkswagen ID.Buzz
Price: $66,040 as tested. Fancy red and silver paint added $995. Heated, ventilated, and massage seats included. Rear alert camera and other safety features and cool lighted VW logo also included.
Conventional wisdom: “Hey, what’s that?” (Heads turn, people smile and wave.)
Marketer’s pitch: “Room for big adventures, personality for miles, and electric technology for the next generation.”
Reality: Almost as cool as it looks.
What’s new: The whole thing. The latest version of the hippie Bus has been a rumor for decades and the electric-powered version years in development. Since the demise of the last air-cooled people hauler in 1981; then “replacements” in the form of the Vanagon (1980-91), EuroVan (1994-2002), and laughable Chrysler-built Routan (2009-14); it’s nice to finally see some real Volkswagen magic again.
Competition: In addition to the Pacifica and Carnival, there are the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna.
Up to speed: EVs have plenty of roar — well, hum — and the ID.Buzz is no exception.
Both rear- and all-wheel-drive models feature a 91-kWh battery. The rear-wheel-drive model tested creates 282 horsepower and gets to 60 mph in 6.7, according to Car and Driver; the 335-horsepower all-wheel-drive unit gets there in 5.5 seconds. Both are impressive numbers for any people-moving box.
Shiftless: The ID.Buzz features a Hyundaiesque twisty stalk for moving forward or back, one of my favorite new setups.
Driver’s Seat: The huge amount of upfront glass and very forward and upright seating position make you feel like you’re in Europe, or a video game, or a little of both.
It takes a minute to line up the ID.Buzz through garage doors and other small openings, but that eased up after some practice.
Bring your bifocals, because the gauge information is squeezed inside the steering wheel opening and can be hard to read.
On the road: The ID.Buzz handles nicely. It feels far smaller than any other minivan. Country roads provide a feeling of “Oh, gee, this goes around the turns well” but they’re not a delight. A trip on some of the tightest old roads snaking through Chester County’s Bam Margera territory for some Marketplace finds made me glad I didn’t have any other minivan.
Highways feel great, and only the roughest roads shake things up.
The brakes can feel a little late to the party, so practice switching to Brake mode or using Sport mode for that extra deceleration.
Fair-weather friend: A nighttime rainstorm dampened my enthusiasm a bit. It never lost its grip, but the ID.Buzz didn’t inspire confidence. I thought the batteries would weigh things down enough, but perhaps all-wheel drive is in order.
Friends and stuff: The seats sit upright and there’s plenty of legroom, headroom, and foot room. Our test model featured a split folding three-person middle seat, and the pieces move completely out of the way for accessing the third row. The third row is as roomy as the other two, and the middle row slides back and forth.
The brown V-Tex leatherette seats provided good hold, support, and cooling, and they all recline except for the third row.
The seats fold into a perfectly flat cargo area. The rear seats are removable, but the middle row is not. That flat cargo area can be slippery, though, and its location about halfway up means there’s a lot of load shifting; invest in some straps.
Cargo space is 145.5 cubic feet with everything folded; 75.5 with the middle seat folded; and 18.6 behind the third row. Sadly, the cargo area is too short for 8-foot boards without angling them, although 7-footers fit right in. And the U.S. gets the longer version.
A neat rack behind the rear seat features two removable cloth bins and a fold-down hideaway cover, super handy for bagless grocery runs and other cargo items; just fill the bins and carry them into the house.
Removing that rack can take away some of the charm, though. The hand bolts require a lot of twists to remove, and then some careful maneuvering to line them back up. Some good clips would be wise.
In and out: It’s a step up, more than most minivans, because you are riding high in the ID.Buzz. This may not be the best choice for aging hippie hips.
Play some tunes: Sound from the Harman Kardon system is awesome, an A+. Speakers all over the place showcase new pieces of old songs from around the cabin, more clearly than almost any other unit tested.
Operation is almost entirely through the large touchscreen, and works fairly well. A button sends you to the menu in the screen, and those options are larger than most units. Still, tactile controls would work so much better.
An ebony volume bar outside the screen provides little feedback as well.
Keeping warm and cool: This is where the touchscreen goes to die (or where you may go to die while trying to operate the touchscreen). We made a trip to Northeast Pennsylvania for Best Friend’s Mom’s 90th birthday party and came back in a nighttime rainstorm. (She was still whooping it up, but we have jobs.)
The icon to start up the HVAC system is far too small to hit without looking, and then the control buttons also require a visual. The defrost controls for front and rear sit way over there to the left of the steering wheel with the light controls, and those icons are hard to see.
Charging: Volkswagen advertises a range of 234 miles, but ours showed 246 (with ambient temperatures in 60s and 70s). It seemed to subtract miles on a one-for-one basis, which was reassuring, but that’s still a short range.
It charges from 10% to 80% in as fast as 26 minutes.
Where it’s built: Hanover, Germany. A fourth of the ID.Buzz components come from China, and 26% from Germany. Just 1% come from the U.S. and Canada.
How it’s built: Consumer Reports hasn’t hazarded a prediction about the ID.Buzz build quality. The ID.4 EV gets a 2 out of 5, but it’s not built in Hanover.
In the end: An easy to drive, roomy minivan that gets some looks? We’ll take it.
Next week: Chrysler Pacifica Plug-in Hybrid.